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Showing posts from December, 2010

Mechanizing the new Enterprise

In this era of Economic Crisis, things are dramatically changing inside the enterprise. Not only low-level employee headcount is decreasing but is some cases high-level, too. It is even possible that department merging takes place. For example typical HR processes are directed to the Accounting Dept. or Marketing is merged with Sales Dept., under one “roof” and management. This is a “business transformation” that needs to be supported by Information Technology, in new ways. In a traditional organization, the HR dept. could have been executing their tasks using spreadsheets or even paper-based processes. This was a system that had been “developed” by an old fashioned HR manager (who is now close to his/her retirement and who will probably not be substituted due to downsizing). If a non-HR specialist is given these tasks, he/she will probably have a hard time finding his way around paper-based processes and custom spreadsheets. Therefore, the procurement of a new HR system is now a “must

Challenging SaaS (part 3)

Anti-SaaS arguments can have their source in true technical concerns or (in some degree) by the buyer’s physical resistance to sign-in to something that they don’t own . This can become a critical factor in some parts of the world, where the sense of ownership is very strong (my country, Greece, is one of them; I hear it’s the same in India and I’m sure that there are a lot more examples like that). And this sense of ownership is strong in other aspects of everyday life, too. For example, the acceptance of leased car versus owning an automobile is not the same in all countries. Let’s go on to see some more examples: I want it up and running on Sundays. It is possible that what the vendor is providing “out-of-the-box” is hot-line customer support on working days and hours. Some prospects are challenging that by raising the argument that they do not just work “nine to five”. In cases like that it is only logical that you will be charged more if your require hot-line availability beyond